University of Kansas's Multicultural Student Government "has ultimately turned into a dictatorship model of government."

An episode that highlights everything wrong with petty student-politicians is now unfolding at the University of Kansas, where activists want to impeach the president of their own alternative student government.

That's right: KU has two parallel student governments—an official one, and a rival Multicultural Student Government (MSG). Though both receive funding from the university, MSG isn't formally recognized as an autonomous government, because that would be ridiculous. Instead, it's a student group with extra rights and a yearly budget of $45,000 that comes from a $1 fee charged to everyone enrolled at KU.

MSG President Chiquita Jackson maintains that members can't remove her because the group isn't actually a government and thus has no impeachment mechanism.

Jackson's own vice president, Anthonio Humphrey, is spearheading the effort to oust her. He gave Jackson until Thursday night to resign from office, or else the group will approve changes to its bylaws in order to allow for an impeachment process.

Under Jackson, "MSG has ultimately turned into a dictatorship," Humphrey and his supporters wrote in a letter to Jackson.

Jackson retorts that if anyone is acting like a dictator, its Humphrey.

"Where is the democracy in that?" a defiant Jackson toldThe University Daily Kansan. "If you want to talk about dictatorship, you're implementing that in that bylaw."

MSG was born out of an earlier controversy. In 2015, student activists alleged that the president, vice president, and chief of staff of the KU Student Senate—the official student government—had refused to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. The three leaders vehemently denied the charge, and put out a statement affirming that "black lives matter at the University of Kansas." Nevertheless, activists called on them to resign from office because they were "standing in the way of institutionalizing a safer, anti-racist environment."

KU activists were inspired by protests at the University of Missouri, which successfully forced a leadership change on that campus. But they ultimately failed to oust the trio. So instead, the activists decided to form an alternative student government that would represent the interests of marginalized students.

The Student Senate permitted the activists to form MSG, but KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little vetoed a proposal to fund it by charging students a $2 fee, on the grounds that setting up a second government was sort of a bonkers idea. Activists said the decision not to fund their group was pure racism—"This is racism, we don't need to call it anything else," said one—even though Gray-Little is herself a woman of a color.

"I believe that the independent student government proposed…is not an optimal way to achieve the goals we have for diversity and inclusion at the university and, indeed, may lead to greater divisiveness," Gray-Little argued.

Greater divisiveness, indeed. Over the last year and a half, MSG was able to obtain university funding—$1 from students, rather than $2—and semi-recognition. But now its president is facing possible impeachment proceedings, and maybe a debate over whether the impeachment itself would be illegitimate.

Humphrey's letter claims that Jackson is "treating MSG as a student organization with privileges as opposed to a central government," and objects to her organizing activities like movie night, presumably because that's something a student group does, not an all-powerful central authority. But the student newspaper has described MSG differently: as a "sibling organization" of the Student Senate, not its own thing.

As Humphrey has his Chancellor Palpatine/"I am the Senate!" moment, it will be interesting to see whether his coup succeeds. In the meantime, remember that this is merely an extreme example of a familiar process. Student governments, after all, are often hijacked by activists and forced to debate pointless political issues well beyond their purview. That's how they prepare fledgling politicians for the real thing.

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All I know is the biggest empty-headed nincompoops ran for student government. I remember one year where there was a scandal and they were trying to ginny support by appealing to students who just walked by ignoring them.

Student government is just a bunch of college kids that didn’t get enough time to play “make believe” when they were younger …probably due to helicopter parents demanding straight A’s, piano lessons, ballet, etc.

At the University of Texas they restored student government back in the 1980s, however the first elections resulted in Hank the Hallucination from “Zippy the Pinhead” winning, so they tossed out the result and not student government.

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When I was in college I spearheaded an effort to eliminate the student activities fee. I made the case that I was poor and couldn’t afford to pay for people to be able to play volleyball in the athletic center, watch movies and host comedy nights, and create a student government so that they could pretend they were grown ups. There are people who go to college who have to actually pay bills. Not everybody has a line to their parents’ checking account. If you want to use the gym, pay for the gym membership. If you want to pretend you’re in a government, have a fucking bake sale.

Obviously, this effort went over like a fart in an elevator.

Years later, in graduate school, I was personally chastized by the director of student activities when he sent out an email saying that they collected a surplus and they were polling students to see what activities to add. I responded saying that the email questionnaire was fundamentally flawed because it presumed that the only option was to spend the surplus.

Actually, I still have the director’s email to me (dating back to 2009):

Mark, there is no ‘other side’. The two student governments recommended keeping the fee MANDATORY so that is what is being distributed to all students. All the information as to if the fee were to go voluntary are a part of the attachment that I sent – I guess you could ascertain from the information sheet about a voluntary fee. If you have specific questions about the differences in campus life if the fee is voluntary or mandatory, please feel free to contact me.

If you wondered what a student government does, there you go. Their purpose is to convince people to vote to keep fees mandatory so that it will continue to fund themselves. And what do these fees pay for? Well, the director graciously provided an attachment, which includes funding for: comedy hours, coffeehouses, weekly movie events, discounted ticket offers, family day programs, student organizations, intramural sports, and the yearbook DVD.

And don’t forget justification, if not outright funding, of the Director of Student Activities position, which likely was in the neighborhood of 6 figures. And specious positions like that is a big reason for the super inflationary rise in college tuition.

I responded saying that the email questionnaire was fundamentally flawed because it presumed that the only option was to spend the surplus.

Everybody knows you lead this negotiation with a throwaway response that puts the third option in a progressively more favorable light.

Start off with a kitten mowing contest or a canned bird hunt. Then suggest something that might be popular but also be legally complex like a 420 ‘legalize it’ frisbee golf event. Then follow up with ‘or you could save the money and charge less for the same activities’.

I’m so confused. I learned recently that people of color can’t be racist for believing they’re superior to white people. Only white people can be racist. Now I’m learning that people of color CAN be racist, but only if they’re racist against their own race. Is that right? Someone please explain the left to me. I just can’t grasp it for some reason.

I think that’s a reasonable argument. But the question becomes when does the existence of something like the NAACP become unnecessary or inappropriate? The goal should be to make such groups unnecessary, but many of today’s supposed anti-racists don’t seem to want that, but rather want to make racial division and distinctions stronger and more permanent.

Do any of you recall the chatter about living in a “post racial society” after BHO was elected? That could not happen as no one who has perceived themselves to be the beneficiary of racial protection wants to give that away, so what we got instead was the identification of “white privilege.” As defined by person such as Ta Nehisi Coates, “whiteness” is in itself a condition, that cannot ever be remedied. We are therefore racists for life, per the re-determination of that sin; therefore affirmative action, minority preferences, reparations, and prima facies accusations [you are presumed guilty so prove yourself innocent if you can] will never go away.

White privilege does not mean that you are automatically racist because you’re white. It means that you have a high likelihood of being a recipient of benefits that came from systematic racism. Whether it’s the wealth (in its various forms) that was bequeathed to you throughout generations, the laws that were passed (and persist) with the intent of suppressing minorities, etc.

It would be completely analogous to being “privileged” enough to have a grandfather successfully rob a bank. Sure, you didn’t do the criminal act, and you’re probably even ashamed of your grandfather for doing it, but you still probably reaped benefits, no matter how indirectly.

It’s not uncommon to see advocacy groups for groups of people who have been oppressed by something or someone in some way, or who are simply underrepresented. It’s of poor taste to create advocacy groups for the opposite group. There’s an asymmetry there whether you like it or not.

For example, there are advocacy groups for handicapped people. There are not advocacy groups for non-handicapped people, and it would be in poor taste to create one. There are advocacy groups for people who have suffered trauma. There are not advocacy groups where the only membership would be people who have not suffered trauma.

Zeb raises a good question about how long do we consider these advocacy groups to be necessary after the grievance ends? I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know that oppression of blacks was a very recent phenomenon (some would argue that it still occurs, but I’m not getting into that…), so it may be a little premature to suggest that these advocacy groups no longer serve a purpose.

“Didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective” “You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working classes…:” “Oh, there you go, bringing class into it again.”

I’ve never understood the whole point of having a student government. In high school it was just a social club that got their own page in the yearbook. My junior college didn’t have one. Or if it did, no one cared enough to announce its existence. But first day at university I get slapped with a $1 fee to support the student government. And I found out it’s actually state law! But there never was a public election, at least never informed of one. What was that $1 for? Do student governments actually have any power? Does their existence mean I signed a social contract?

Moreover, what the fuck is up with student unions? It’s a place with fusball and 80s era arcade machines. Outside of France do students actually go on strike? Demand better wages? Engage in collective bargaining?

Academia really is like an alternative universe impinging up on our reality, like some bad Syfy movie.

In 2015, student activists alleged that the president, vice president, and chief of staff of the KU Student Senate ? the official student government ? had refused to stand in solidarity with communist front-group Black Lives Matter.

I don’t see the problem. They’re acting like real politicians, wielding power they don’t have, clinging to power at all costs and generally acting like elitist jerks. They’re preparing for life in government service and by all appearances, they’ll fit right in. KU ought to give them credits towards a degree.

Well I completely understand why kids want college to be free. I wouldn’t want to pay to subject myself to the absolute nonsense that passes for higher education in America. No wonder these kids graduate have 100k in student loans and work at McDonald’s their education is nothing but bastardized mix of Marxist indoctrination and political correctness. Every decision, event, or statement they don’t like is Racist even when race isn’t in the equation. Take the travel ban, to them stopping Islamic terrorists from entering the nation is Racist even though Islam is a religion. Or the more recent supposed S-Hole nation comment. The President IF he said it referred to the place not the people, places by the way none of them would visit let alone live in. But right away it was racist. These college kids all scream for diversity and multiculturalism as if this is a good thing. Yet everywhere diversity has taken over assimilation, that culture has died and the nation/empire left in ruins. From Egyptian to Roman empires, all destroyed from within but History per-Marx is no longer taught

Take the travel ban, to them stopping Islamic terrorists from entering the nation is Racist even though Islam is a religion.

Correlations are important and not irrelevant. The stated goals of a government program are rarely the true motivation. For example, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the original prohibitions against pot were racially-motivated. Sure, pot isn’t itself a racial issue, but the demographics (perceived or otherwise) are. Trying to understand someone’s motivations for the puzzling things they say or do is important. For example, your post is clearly racially-motivated, even though you didn’t say anything that was explicitly racist.

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